Branding is a term we hear a lot these days during social media talks, entrepreneurship speeches, and business growth keynotes. But, what is branding actually? Have you ever thought about branding? Let me help you with this.
What is Branding 101
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What is branding?
- Why is it important?
- Different ways to do branding
What is Branding?
“A brand is how a company, organization, or individual is perceived by those who experience it.” — Brian Lischer
Branding is a company’s image that we design and present to the audience. It contains everything a brand represents, advertises, and communicates – from the logo, colors, fonts, and designs to advertising techniques, creative ideas, and attention-grabbing stunts are branding.
Have you ever walked into a supermarket and seen a floor sticker printed right across the front door? Or, have you seen a large backlit signboard outside your favorite clothing store? All these things are branding. Businesses want consumers to remember their brands through different techniques, and therefore, branding is one of those things. But branding is a little different than advertising. See, in advertising, brands communicate aggressively through giant hoardings, pamphlets, TV commercials, social media ads, whereas in branding, the brands try to be creative to get noticed and remembered.
Why it is important?
It’s important because Branding Increases Recognition. You might see an apple and you will start resembling it with the apple brand. Branding also creates top of the mind impression as well. For instance, if i ask you about your favourite car, laptop or mobile? What brand comes in your mind? This is the brand’s TOM.
Additionally it helps you in
- Increasing Business Value
- Generates new customers
- Branding Builds Trust
To make things more understandable, I’d like to tell you different elements that help your branding:
Color Schemes
There are always some colors that represent a brand. For instance, blue for Samsung and maroon for LG. When you look at their branding, you always find those colors. In fact, they stick to their colors because such things create a mark on the audience mind, and ultimately, those colors start to relate the brand in the consumers’ minds. In the world of branding, colors are a very important player.
Logo Design
The logo is equally important to the color scheme in branding. A logo is a representation and identification of a brand. Brands pay a lot of attention on creating their logos because they impact their branding. For instance, if you see Apple’s logo anywhere, it would immediately tell you about the iPhone manufacturing company Apple Inc. because we have been that Apple logo everywhere. If you’re a Windows user, you’d quickly figure out the Microsoft Windows’ logo wherever you’d see that sign. A logo plays a huge role in your branding.
Fonts
The importance of fonts can’t be denied. Some brands are font-conscious, meaning, they use their specific fonts no matter what. In some cases, some businesses would have fonts tailored to their brands or know the best fonts to use for their branding. It’s a pure branding technique because they want to associate certain fonts with their brand. You may not have noticed this before but this happens all the time. Pay close attention to top websites, blogs, and publishers; they often stick to certain fonts everywhere.
Website Design
Branding can’t be completed without an active official website. A website is where a brand tells about itself – when people want to find out about the brand, they Google the brand name, and what they stumble upon quickly is the website of the brand. It’s extremely important to establish, manage, and run a website. A well-maintained and updated website must have a clear information about the company, services or products, profile, and contact details. If a brand doesn’t have a website, it means that brand is losing eyeballs by not focusing on the online presence. It definitely hurts the branding of the company.
Social Media
Social media is not just about posting updates and sharing content. If you are not using it for branding purpose, you are using it incorrectly. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram allow us to do branding through various things such as display picture, cover, bio, and URL section. If we start to use these things properly, it would start to attract new eyeballs and we may end up reaching to more people that would not be possible otherwise. Branding is not limited to logo and website, it’s your representation wherever hang out online. Use the cover, display picture, bio, and URL wisely.
Recommended Reading : How to Grow Your Brand with Facebook Live Video
Content
Your content helps you reach out to other people and it portrays your image, which makes it a tool of branding. When you publish good content whether it’s a video or article, and people start to appreciate your content, it contributes to your brand. As a result, more people start to follow you because of the attention and appreciation. So content does contribute to the branding.
FAQ
Is Branding Different For Small vs. Large Companies?
Yes, due to the nature of business, market, niche and budget criteria. It’s totally different for small vs large companies.
What is the purpose of branding?
Branding have multiple reasons and purposes. From brand perception to image building to customer awareness to generating more sales.
What is the difference between logo and branding?
Logo is one aspect which helps people in remembering your identity. Branding on the other hand, consider it as a larger and bigger picture. Logo is part of branding.
Can A Company Have Multiple Brands?
A company can have many brands for instance P&G (Proctor and Gamble) owns many brands.
Can a brand have other brands?
Yes for instance, McDonalds who is a well known brand have many brands such as Mac Chicken, Mac Crispy, Mac Flurry. McDonalds have tried to make all of them a brand as well.
Additional Readings
Conclusion
Remember, Your brand is what other perceive about it, when u are not in room.
The idea of this blog post was to tell you that a lot of people don’t pay attention to their branding. It’s vital to think and act intelligently on branding aspects of your business because it’s not just about marketing, in fact, it’s about a brand-to-customer relationship as well.
A customer starts to build an impression of the brand, and branding just strengthens that impression.
Have you noticed some TV commercials come thousands of time during a live match?
The reason is branding; those brands want you to indulge their brand into our heads because they know that they’d make millions in return if the audience starts to remember their brand.
What does branding mean to you?
Let’s talk in the comments section!
